The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most significant holders of the vice-presidency in US history. While numerous vice-presidents were limited to marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised huge power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and stated the connection was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, always calling him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the attacks altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I was convinced back then and I believe it presently."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: at worst, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a memo detailing situations in which American interests might be threatened (including "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were either thin or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the use of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place initiatives to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his hole? It's a effective way to work, actually."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the corporation rose from his $258,394 when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty
